


Hope is the Thing With Feathers

by Camelittle



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Environmentalism, Hurt Merlin, Hurt/Comfort, Legends, Loneliness, Love that transcends time, M/M, Magic, Melancholy, Post-Canon Fix-It, Reincarnation, Romance, Trees
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-27
Updated: 2016-01-27
Packaged: 2018-05-16 16:13:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5832175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Camelittle/pseuds/Camelittle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arthur stands at a crossroads in his life. His daily round of hollow accomplishments and conflicts sees him drifting into apathy, at odds with his sister, and unable to fully endorse his father's cynicism. But when he sleeps, vivid dreams conjure a magical world, and in it a man, familiar and beloved. As dream and reality become entwined, Arthur battles to find - and save - what he prizes above all else.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hope is the Thing With Feathers

**Author's Note:**

> All my thanks to my amazing beta-reader, archaeologist_d, who gave me so much help in nurturing this little acorn and helping it to grow into a sapling, and in de-purpling the prose! I am not exaggerating when I say that I could *not* have finished this without her help. 
> 
> Any mistakes that remain are mine.

When Arthur finally sleeps, he dreams of a sun-flooded clearing, loud with birdsong and the hum of insects. A ramshackle cottage sends smoke curling through the air. Butterflies, great dancing clouds of them, rise at his approach. He glimpses movement—a hind, which, startled, bucks and springs away from him, hooves thudding on dirt, tail bobbing into the woods. To one side of the path, a brook gurgles across stones.

Hints of a familiar scent—earth, lavender and cherry blossom—remind him of something. Somewhere. Someone.

A puzzled frown pulls his eyebrows together when he wakes. He blinks. 

 _Merlin. Who is Merlin?_  

*

The day has been long and the night even longer, and Arthur sinks gratefully into slumber. Soon, he’s entering the clearing again, drawn along a path that meanders through flowers. Giddy with the scent of honeysuckle, he steps through a natural arch of entwined birch trees. Its leaves shiver as he brushes past.

As he draws closer, the door of the cottage opens. A young man stands on the threshold, his face hidden in shadow.

“Arthur?” The man steps out from the shade. Light spills onto sharp cheekbones, a mess of tangled black hair, an incredulous grin, eyes bright and sunny as the sky.

Some deeply buried, but happy memory makes Arthur’s blood race and raises bumps on his skin.

“Merlin!” The word spills straight from Arthur’s heart. He doesn’t know where he’s held it nor for how long. But even as the man, _Merlin,_ steps forward with a delighted smile, arms outstretched as if to fold him in a hug, another voice drags Arthur from his sleep. The dream fades, the music of the birds drowned by the buzz of traffic outside his window, and Sophia is frowning at him across the bed.

“You were talking in your sleep, weirdo,” she says, mouth drawn up into a sneer. “It was creepy.”

It was a mistake, inviting her in. He won’t make that mistake again.

*

Today, the office has been filled with hard words, and dinner with Morgana even more so, but peace comes as he drifts away into sleep, summoned through the birch arch and into the sanctuary of the clearing.

Stepping carefully over a hedgehog which bumbles along unconcerned, Arthur looks up to the cottage and halts abruptly. Merlin is not alone today. A woman, grey-haired, wrapped in a cocoon of woollen garments, sits on a stool in the sun while Merlin digs.

Not wanting to intrude, Arthur stays within the shelter of the birch arches. Its leaves have fallen, but he trusts the mat of wintry branches to hide his presence.

Merlin stops digging, and bends to grasp something. He straightens with his hand wrapped round the trunk of a sapling, propping its root ball into the hole he has dug, and drags earth around it.

“An oak is a fitting tribute to Gaius,” says the woman. “It will live long, as he did.”

“He was like a father to me,” says Merlin, voice cracking. He brushes a hand across his face, leaving dirt in its wake. “I’m glad he can rest here. But whatever will I do without him?”

“Come to me, my son.” The woman sighs, holding out her arms. “It is a hard destiny, to see those you care for leaving this world, one by one. But at least, here in Ealdor Combe, you can keep us close to you while you wait for Arthur to return. If he ever does.”

“Arthur will return.” Merlin’s voice carries confidently. “I have already seen him. He was dressed strangely, in loose clothes as if for sleep. But it was him, I know it, Mother. Looking so young, as he did when he was just a spoiled princeling. And you… you are not leaving me yet.” He draws a lock of hair behind her ear with a gentle hand, and she grasps it, bringing it to her lips.

 _Trust the soft-hearted bumpkin to be comforting his mother in her concern for him._ Arthur wonders with the next breath what deep wellspring of emotion has birthed both his thought and the affection that came with it.

“No. But when I do, I want to rest here.” She sits back, closing her eyes. “At the foot of the oak, with my old friend resting by my side, and my son watching over us.”

The two of them embrace, shoulders shaking, and Arthur feels his sleep slipping away, tugged by the urgent call of his phone.

When he wakes, his face is wet and his ribs feel tight.

*

Arthur hates Uther's study. It’s cold, so cold, Uther prefers it that way. And yet Arthur always emerges from it clammy with sweat. The walls are austerely decorated in neutral tones that bleed away all life and colour. The chairs are adjustable, but they’re set to be too low—so Uther looks down his nose at everyone who comes in.

“The so-called scientists and stick-in-the-mud environmentalists cannot stand in the way of progress any longer.” Uther rests his chin on steepled fingers. “I want them ejected. See to it, Arthur.”

“Yes, Father.” Arthur sighs and rubs the sore spot between his eyes. Lately, he’s been finding it hard to shake off the dreams that haunt him even in waking hours. A sad pair of eyes, in shifting shades of blue like the ocean, begging for something, he doesn’t know what. And when he wakes, there is a painful twist in his sternum, as if someone has tied his heart and a strong fist is squeezing it. “If you are sure that there is no other possible location for the development…”

“There isn’t. The site we have identified is the only feasible route that the motorway can take. This country needs more infrastructure, Arthur. The traffic crisis is acute. Pendragon developments is performing a civic duty.”

“I know that, Father.” Arthur pinches the bridge of his nose, but it fails to ward off his building headache. “I just think that it is foolish to destroy something that can never be replaced.”

“What’s more important? A bunch of flea-ridden hedgehogs and mangey squirrels, or the economic well-being of this entire nation?” Uther’s jaw flexes and he presses the buzzer under his desk that signals to his P.A. that the meeting is over. “Goodbye, Arthur. I suggest you swallow your romantic notions and leave the decision-making to those who have the stomach for difficult choices.”

“Biodiversity is not a romantic notion, Father.” Arthur steps forward, fists clenched to stop his hands trembling. “Morgana says that…”

“I don’t care what Morgana says.” Uther bangs the table for emphasis. “The bulldozers move in tomorrow. This is your last chance to ensure that you remain at the heart of this business. See to it, or I will be forced to take action to remove you from your post.”

“But Father…” Arthur bites his lip, trying to find the words.

A vast array of protesters, ranging from Greenpeace to Morgana’s traveller friends and an army of locals from the nearby village of Aldercombe have lodged objections to the government’s plans. Scientists argue that the valley’s unique, ice-age ecology and its rare birds and insects must be preserved. Once lost, they will be gone forever. Moreover, archaeologists have recently discovered remains of a rare, pre-Anglo Saxon settlement. Although the dig has been completed, and a number of artefacts housed into a local museum, Morgana is adamant that the valley houses more, maybe even some important burials, and it should be investigated further.

But it’s no use. Pendragon Developments have been given the green light to carry out the work, and once he has a contract, Uther is as relentless as his bulldozers.

“But what?” Uther narrows his eyes. “I am sure that Cenred would be happy to take your place if you do not wish to proceed.”

“That won’t be necessary, Father. If you’re certain. I will oversee it myself.” Arthur presses his lips together, swallowing down his protests, knowing when to admit defeat. He doesn’t like the idea of Centred riding roughshod over his team.

“Need I remind you that time is money?” adds Uther in icy tones.

“No, Father.” As Arthur turns away, in a remote corner of his head Morgana is screaming at him. A bitter flavour fills his mouth, and the heavy knot in his chest seems to tighten.

 

*

At least he can still find sanctuary in sleep.

It falls on him slowly, tonight. An autumnal chill has settled on the city, and Arthur shivers, his feet cold against the new sheets. He turns onto his side, to his back, grasping for the memory of that perfect glade, its joy and intensity. For a while, the cold keeps him away, but then he hears a voice, Merlin’s voice, calling his name, and finally he is taken into his dream landscape.

The air is heavy with pollen and drugging heat, and Merlin is waiting for him at the birch arch. Pungent roses twist thickly around it. His lips echo their colour, like a promise of summer.

“You came back! I thought you’d never come,” Merlin’s eyes are sad. “I thought I’d lost you again.”

He kneels at Arthur’s feet. Arthur only realises that they’re still bare when Merlin’s tears fall on them.

“Stand up, idiot!” Arthur rolls his eyes. He still doesn’t know where the words spring from. “You of all people should not kneel. Not to me, not to anybody.”

“Still the same old Arthur,” says Merlin, rocking back on his heels. “Dispensing abuse with one breath, justice with the next.” When he looks up, a light in his eyes flickers, blue and gold, mingling sorrow and joy.

“What do you mean? How do I know you, exactly?”

“You’re Arthur. I’m Merlin. We go together. You know me. You know me as… as the sea knows the shore. We fit, like the jagged cliffs fit the shape of the waves.” Merlin waves his hand for emphasis.

“Very poetic,” says Arthur, smiling.

A cloud clears away, and sudden sunlight slants through the leaves of a mature oak, down onto Arthur’s face, making swirls of light dance across his vision. This tree stands away from the cottage and to one side, roughly in the place where Merlin had planted that sapling in Arthur’s previous dream, but it is much bigger; its trunk spans a good metre in diameter.

“I’ve missed you, you arrogant clotpoll.” Merlin stares up at him, eyes bright, his voice wavering. “Took your bloody time. It’s been nearly four hundred years! They tell me that King Edgar is on the throne now! And you look so young. But it’s hardly Albion’s greatest need. We’ve been at peace for years. Are you even real?”

“I could ask you the same thing, Merlin,” Arthur sighs. Four hundred years. Has this dream-Merlin been waiting all this time, by the side of the oak tree he planted? “I’ve only ever seen you in my dreams.”

“You’re not real, are you?” A line appears between Merlin’s eyes. “Not real, not even now. Gods! How much longer must I wait?” A teardrop spills refracted sunlight onto his cheek.

“I’m sorry,” says Arthur, wondering what is so wrong with him that his subconscious could invent this man, familiar and beloved, only to torture him with loneliness. It makes his heart hurt. Strands of Merlin’s hair slide through his fingers as he bends and reaches to press Merlin’s trembling head to his belly. “So, so sorry.” Warm breath gusts against his t-shirt in a slow, comforting rhythm that matches the pace of his hand stroking Merlin’s head.

“Bloody come back soon, properly this time, cabbage brain.” With a watery sniff, Merlin clutches at the fabric of Arthur’s trousers. “Not sure how much longer I can hold on.” Clinging on, arms looped around Arthur’s waist, Merlin shakes as Arthur smooths his hair, and then quietens, still attached to Arthur like a lifeline, breathing hard.

“I will, if I can.” Arthur curls a strand of Merlin’s hair round his finger. “I’m here, now, aren’t I?”

“True,” says Merlin, looking up. His lop-sided smile is still watery, and pink blotches litter his face, but his beauty still steals Arthur’s breath. Especially when Merlin, mercurial as ever, cocks his head to one side and his expression changing in a heartbeat from hopeful to sly and coquettish. “I suppose… It would be a shame to waste the opportunity, right? I mean, while you’re here. We might as well. You know.” He waggles his eyebrows.

“Are you propositioning me?” Arthur tries not to laugh, he really does, but there’s something so comical about Merlin’s sudden shift of mood that he can’t help himself.

“I might be.” Merlin’s familiar crinkle-eyed smirk bursts a bubble of tension in Arthur’s chest, filling him with warmth. “It is your destiny to… erm... pull the sword from the stone, after all.”

“Always wondered what that was all about.” Still chuckling, Arthur pulls Merlin up. A lightheadedness sweeps through him, like the giddiness of youth, and smiling, he presses their mouths together in a thrill of wet heat and salt.

Merlin leads Arthur by the hand to the shelter of the stone cottage, and they move against one another in familiar ways that have been lost to him for longer than he can remember.

And later, as their breath slows and their skin loses its heat, they drowse and whisper assurances into each other’s hair.

“Am I dreaming, too?” says Merlin, twisting his head where it lies on Arthur’s chest, so that their eyes meet.

“How would I know?” says Arthur. Merlin’s eyes are chips of blue in a sea of pale skin. Their wistful expression steals Arthur’s breath for a second so that his answer is more gruff than he’d intended. “When I dream of you, of making love to you, of… of this place… it feels real to me.”

“You’re the only thing that’s real, for me, any more.” Swallowing, Merlin reaches for Arthur’s hand and laces their fingers together, hot and slick with sweat and seed. “But so much time has passed since you last came.”

“Only a day or two for me,” says Arthur. It’s too long, even for him. How must it feel for Merlin, waiting for centuries at a time? “I’m sorry.”

*

“It’s too late, Morgana. I’m sorry.” Lately, Arthur feels like he’s done nothing but apologise. Maybe he’s making up for some former life in which he never expressed regret for anything. He holds the phone at arm’s length, to mask the sound of her voice, “The bulldozers move in tomorrow,” he yells into the mouthpiece. “There’s nothing I can do.”

Her face on the screen abruptly winks out as she ends the call. He doesn’t really blame her.

He hurls the phone at the wall where it clatters, then drops with a thud. Lying back, he massages the throbbing pain that’s nagging at his breastbone, as if his heart is protesting that he’s not listening to it.

 _It’s the last time,_ he silently pledges. _The last time I’ll do Uther’s dirty work._ There must be some organizations who would value Arthur’s engineering expertise without requiring him to desecrate Britain’s vanishing virgin forest. He lies awake, mulling over his options, but getting nowhere.

At some point, though, he must have dropped off to sleep, because now he is running through the glade, running, running, frantic, yelling Merlin’s name into the dense canopy of auburn leaves as he runs. A wild gust of wind takes up his calls, flinging them from tree to tree. The gnarled old oak blocks his path, huge and mis-shapen like a crouching beast, wide enough to swallow a car.

The door to the little house is wide open, banging frantically in the breeze. Ivy threads through the windows and into the roof, where tiles have slid down, leaving great gaps. The house is not far off being ruined.

He calls up the stairs before hurdling them, two at a time. A musty scent of decay and disuse lingers through the house. When he pushes at the bedroom door, though, it doesn’t budge. It takes a couple of hefty shoves before it bursts open, propelling Arthur into the room, where he stops, heart in mouth.

“Merlin?” he whispers, closing the distance to the bed in swift strides.

For there Merlin lies, skin pale as parchment, eyes closed, hair spilling across the pillow in black waves. His fingers twitch, but he’s otherwise still. The room’s window is unglazed, and ivy tumbles through it, stark dark green against the pale plaster. Outside the window a robin trills incongruously. It’s the only sound bar the harsh stutter of Merlin’s breathing.

“Merlin?” Sitting on the edge of the bed, Arthur grasps a hand, strokes it.

Merlin’s skin wrinkles at his touch, cool and papery beneath his fingertips. His eyes fly open, and he fixes Arthur with a glare. Abruptly, his free hand shoots out and clamps round Arthur’s wrist so that Arthur can feel the bones clench.

“That was too fucking long, clotpoll.” His voice is so loud in the silent house that it makes Arthur's heart thump.

“Bloody hell, idiot, you frightened the life out of me,”Arthur replies, heart thudding like an athlete’s.

“Eight hundred fucking years!” With a sob, Merlin rises from the bed, hands pawing frantically at Arthur’s clothes. “Get these off. I need to feel you. Now!”

“What? But—”

“No!” Merlin’s face is awash with tears, and his chest heaves. “No buts!” Frantic, he scrabbles at Arthur’s pyjama bottoms, and won’t rest until Arthur kneels, naked between Merlin’s thighs, pulse loud in his ears.

“Merlin, you need food. And you’re dehydrated. Can’t we just…?” Arthur’s treacherous cock, however, has no such qualms. It juts forward, fully erect and leaking with need.

“I know what I need.” Merlin tugs him forward, until he falls prone onto Merlin’s chest and their bodies line up against each other, warm and sweat-slick in the spaces that lie between them.

Arthur groans as he eases in, and he tries to take things slow, mindful of Merlin’s long abstinence.

“I have to have you. I have to!” Merlin’s eyes are haunted, and he gasps aloud in heartbreak and despair as he works insistent fingers across Arthur’s back and his arse.

Giving in, Arthur ruts into Merlin’s demanding heat, spilling moments later with an urgent cry. Merlin follows him down, his eyes glowing gold, summoning a wind that draws giddying circles across Arthur’s exposed skin, making him shiver.

Later, they lie, skin cooling, upon the sheets. The breeze gentles, while outside the window scraps of cloud flit across a washed-blue sky. When Merlin starts to shake, Arthur holds on to his bony frame as if it would fly apart without him there, until the tremors fade and they lie at peace in each other’s arms.

Only then does Merlin let Arthur bring him blackberries from the bramble thicket and water from the spring.

Arthur feeds the soft fruit to him, watching the juice send purple stains blooming across full lips. The pain in his chest has gone.

“Here,” says Merlin, reaching for something hidden on a shelf behind him, “take this. I want you to have it.”

It’s a tiny, toy dragon, crudely carved from a pale wood, smooth as if often handled.

“I can’t—”

“Don’t act the noble, self sacrificing clotpoll.” An air of fond exasperation in Merlin’s voice makes Arthur’s bones ache. “Take it. It will comfort me to know that you have it. For, who knows how long I have to wait this time for your return?”

“I suppose, as it’s my dream, that it can’t do any harm for me to have it,” says Arthur, mock-frowning as he turns it over in his fingers. It’s warm to the touch.

“Arrogant git.” Merlin pushes at his shoulder with a smile.

“Presumptuous bumpkin.” Pushing Merlin back on the pillow, affection sweeping through him, Arthur returns his grin, then covers it with a bruising, blackberry-flavoured kiss.

This time, when they fuck, they take it long and slow and Arthur inhales the mossy scent of Merlin’s skin with every breath.

 

*

It's close to midnight, and Arthur lies awake, stress drawing the muscles in his chest into tight knots. 

“It’s madness down here, Arthur,” Elena is yelling into the other end of the phone line, voice nearly drowned by the wail of police sirens. “But the police are doing a great job. There’s no need for you to come down. We’re all fine, seriously!”

She would never ask for help, his site foreman, but he knows when he’s needed. It will be good for morale. The workers need to know that they’re supported.

“It’s all right, Elena. I know you can manage, but I think I’ll come down tomorrow anyway.” He sighs, massaging his sternum with his free hand. It does nothing to relieve the ache.

“All right, boss. Suit yourself.” Elena laughs. “God. Got to hand it to these protesters, though. They’re pretty brave, lying down in front of bulldozers and such.”

“Yeah, I’ll bet. They are certainly to be commended on their commitment. Tough on you, though, El. I’m grateful, I really am.” Arthur groans and thinks about paracetamol. He’ll need to be up before dawn to get down to Aldercombe for eight. “I’ll get some shuteye. See you in the morning.”

“S’ all right. See ya!”

Arthur lies in the dark, staring up at a ghostly cobweb, back-lit by the streetlight outside his window, thinking about the protestors. What must be like to believe in what you’re doing? To care so much about something that you’re prepared to lie down in front of a fifty-ton bulldozer? He casts about for something in his life that he cares about that much, and comes up with nothing. except…

His agitation enters his dream with him, and he stalks through an empty glade. Fog bleaches the colour from the trees and the soil lies empty and dormant, bereft of flowers and the creatures who visit them. The huge oak looms, bent with age, clawing towards the sky.

The cottage is gone. A few crumbled stones, lichen-stained, hard edges blunted by moss, are all that remains.

“Merlin?” Arthur whispers, heart aching, eyes pricking as he turns over stones and picks at fallen branches, his breath staining the cold air white. He can’t be gone, he can’t. But there is no sound but the cracking of twigs beneath his feet and the faint echo of his own distress. Eventually, he returns to the tree and sits at its base, with his back to it. He buries his hands in his pyjama pockets, pulling out the carved dragon that Merlin gave him, and turning it over and over in his hand as he weeps.

When the alarm clock’s shrill cry tugs him away, his grief only doubles, and he despairs of ever finding Merlin again.

Turning to switch off the alarm, he frowns in sudden discomfort. Something hard is jammed up against his thigh. Fishing in his pocket, fumbling in the half-light that’s filtering through the curtain, he frowns when he retrieves it.

“Well, hello! How on earth did you get _there?_ ” he says. “Am I going crazy?”

The tiny carved dragon, its wood silky and worn, stares back at him, unblinking, and he smiles wanly at it.

 _“Merlin,”_   he says, a bud of hope waking in his heart, drawing his lips up in an incredulous smile, and he laughs, suddenly giddy with it. “You’re real. I knew it!”

Morgana would tell him that this is all in his head, that it has all been caused by the stress of this project. But that’s not what Arthur believes.

Just before he leaves, he shoves the dragon into the pocket of his work trousers.

 

*

Jamming his hard hat on his aching head, Arthur strides past the security cordon and pauses, frowning. He’s not sure whether it’s a drop in temperature or his sense of _deja vu_ that makes him shiver.

Bulldozers have already levelled the land, felling trees, diverting the watercourse to prepare a firm base. But progress has halted. Grimly, he approaches Elena, wellies squelching in the mud.

“Morning, El.”

“Morning, boss.” She smiles, beckoning, and they walk on together.

“It’s awfully quiet, for a construction site.” He nods at the stationary, silent vehicles as he walks.

“There are some protesters still here,” she says, jogging along by his side, her feet slithering as she tries to keep up. “In this tree. But we need to fell it before we can carry on. So we’ve got to find them and persuade them to come out.”

The wave of familiarity that washes over him when he halts in front of the vast tree doesn’t surprise him, somehow. Its massive trunk sprawls upon knuckles of unearthed roots, reaching up to black branches crowned in moss and lichen. At first glance it looks dead, but this year’s faded auburn leaves still cling to its boughs. Arthur reaches out to touch it, with fingertips at first, and then with palms flat against the bark's bumps rad ridges. The tree’s leaves shiver, whispering as if there is a breeze, seeming almost to sigh at his touch.

“How many protesters? Hey, that's odd. It's warm.” Absently, Arthur strokes the trunk, marvelling.

“We thought they had all come down,” says Elena, “but then we heard a voice screaming out from inside the tree. It freaked us out. So we stopped.” She bites her lip. “Did I do anything wrong?”

He shakes his head. He doesn’t blame them.

“The trunk could be hollow,” he says. “Maybe someone got stuck inside. Hello?” He puts his ear to the bark.

Which is when the tree finally yields up its treasure. With a muffled yelp, something heavy tumbles onto him, pinning him to the mud with a groan.

“Do you mind?” Blinking, Arthur pushes the skinny and very naked man off him, sending him sprawling into the dirt, where he lies, eyes fluttering closed, chest heaving. Kneeling in the mud, Arthur gasps, his heart thumping in sudden recognition. “Merlin?”

" _Arthur_ ," says Merlin, voice a faint whisper. “You took your time, clotpoll.” He groans, curling into a fetal position. Dark, slick mud stains the skin of his back.

“What the hell were you doing in that tree?” Arthur bends, putting his hand to Merlin’s shoulder. It feels cold, too cold.

“S’ my tree. My valley.” A brief smile twitches at the corner of Merlin’s mouth, but his breathing is laboured. Slowly, his eyes glaze over, then roll back under his lids.

“No!” He can’t lose Merlin again, not now! Cursing, Arthur casts around for help. “Bring me clothes! Blankets!” He struggles out of his own jacket, breath clouding the air, skin erupting in goosebumps as he wraps Merlin in layers of fleece to cover his nakedness. “Quickly!”

“But, Arthur,” said Elena, jumping up and down as if to dislodge the cold. “The bulldozers can go in now, if we just—”

“Quickly!” he yells. “Stop the sodding bulldozers. This is all a big mistake.” Gasping, blinking back tears, he hauls Merlin back into his embrace, mud soaking through his shirt. Distantly, he registers his own voice bellowing out instructions as he pulls Merlin to him. Nothing eases the burning ache in his chest save the touch of Merlin’s skin against his. His heart pounds in urgency and distress, and he presses hands to Merlin’s clammy skin, panicking in the slither of the mud and his rage and self-loathing.

“Merlin! Merlin!” The words spill from him like tears, over and over. Wrenched from him. He stares at Merlin’s face, clutching at Merlin’s arms, at his chest, smearing mud across his cheeks in his panic. “Merlin! Come back to me!”

“There’s the ambulance,” Elena is saying. Far off a siren is already blaring.

But Arthur has eyes only for Merlin. On instinct, he gathers Merlin up into his arms, scrambling closer to the tree, feet sliding through the churned up dirt and puddles. The touch of its trunk seems to slow Merlin’s ragged breathing somehow, and a spot of colour appears on Merlin’s cheeks.

“Arthur?” His voice barely a whisper, Merlin peers at him, a flash of blue through half-open lids. “Dragon. I need...?” his head lolls on one side, eyes drifting closed again, and Arthur tightens his grip, despairing.

It’s only then that he remembers. He holds Merlin with one arm, hard up against the tree, and with the other he feels around in his pocket. Sure enough, the toy dragon is there, smooth and hard against his knuckles. Still cradling Merlin, he retrieves it and presses it to Merlin’s chest.

Merlin’s eyes fly open, glowing gold, and he screams out loud. A sudden wind lifts the boughs of the tree, setting them chattering. Stronger and stronger it blows, bringing leaves and dust and clouds billowing into the valley. A sudden blaze of light flares, blinding him, bringing with it an abrupt change of cadence to Merlin’s still-screaming voice that fills Arthur with hope. He closes his eyes, but the sparkling glare behind his lids carries on.

*

When he opens them again, the terrible light has gone, replaced by a calm, green glow that fills the glade beneath the great oak. Its leaves burst bright, heavy with spring. The construction team and all their gear have vanished, and only Arthur and Merlin remain - alone and together, warmed by the sun that peeps through the boughs and caresses the bare skin of Arthur’s arms. Around them, the forest floor is strewn with sun-specked bluebells, blue flecked with gold, like Merlin's eyes. 

They sit, side by side, at the base of the tree, hands entwined.

“What have you done?” says Arthur, chasing a smear of mud across Merlin’s cheek with a wondering thumb. “Where have they gone? What have you done to them?”

“They haven’t gone anywhere.” Merlin shrugs, and he takes a deep breath. His exhale doesn’t rattle, not any more. “I just rolled things back a few months. you know. To… before.” Colour blooms across his cheeks and he smiles.

“What?” Frowning, Arthur gazes up at the unmistakeable signs of spring that are bursting from the tree. “You haven’t harmed them.” It’s a question, phrased as a statement.

“No.” Merlin sighs. “I wouldn’t do that, Arthur.” He struggles to a sitting position, his back lined up along the tree as if deriving energy from it, from the sun. “I am yours. Me, and the land, and all the creatures in it. People too. We are all yours. I could no more harm them than I could bring myself to hurt you. You must know that.” Merlin’s breath is coming easier now, and colour is returning to his cheeks.

“You turned back time.” Bemused, Arthur shakes his head. “How powerful are you? Who are you?”

“Told you. I’m Merlin. I have magic.” Merlin tilts his head to one side, lips quirking up. He stretched out his hand, fingers splayed, and waggled them to emphasise his words. “I’m your destiny, clotpoll”

Ever the practical man, Arthur ignores the warmth that blooms through him at Merlin’s words, and focuses instead on making sense of the situation that confronts him.

“If you have magic, then why didn’t you stop the construction?” he says. Surely with all that power at his fingertips, Merlin could have stopped the construction before it came to this point.

But Merlin’s sunny expression clouds over.

“I’m sorry.” Looking away, Merlin bites his lip. “I… I sort of… gave up. I suppose. I’d protected Ealdor Combe for so long, I thought… I wasn’t sure you would ever… I failed you. When they came, I should have stopped them, I could have, but I didn’t see the point. I thought… it might have been better if… You know. Rather than wait for something that was never going to happen.”

“I’m sorry too,” Arthur can guess what Merlin is hinting at, and his heart aches.

“You came to me, that time, and we….” Merlin swallows, face pinking, “It was all I’d ever dreamed of. But then you didn’t return again. I thought you never would. So I hid myself, slumbering in this tree. I don’t know how long for. “

“I came back,” Arthur says, voice cracking at the memory. “In my dream. You weren’t here. I thought you were gone forever.”

“I’m sorry!” Merlin’s fingers trace circles on Arthur’s face. “So, sorry. But something woke me, thirty or so winters ago…”

“I was born,” says Arthur, guessing. “I’m thirty-two now. But in my—our—dreams the tree was smaller. Much smaller.”

“Yes. It’s old, now. But I am older. And I can’t believe you’re finally here.” Merlin huffs out a laugh that’s more like a sob, and a tear spills over his lash. Arthur follows it with a gentle finger.

“I’m here now.” He leans to press a kiss to Merlin’s forehead. “Whenever _now_ is, of course.”

“It’s spring,” says Merlin, as if that explains everything.

Which perhaps it does. The clearance will start in early Autumn, and Arthur’s dreams will start in mid November. So Merlin’s magic has taken them back about eight months or so.

“Can you take us back? Forward, I mean.” Even as he says it, Arthur is hoping that the answer is no.

“I think we have little choice.” Merlin sighs. “My magic will only hold us here for so long.”

“Right.” Eyes closed, Arthur draws a deep breath into his lungs, savouring the clean air. “We must stop my father. Stop him destroying the tree.”

“Yes. Yes.” Merlin’s adam’s apple bobs and his eyes start to shine again. “All the innocent creatures. All the plants. I protected them for so long.”

“If I… I can stop my father.” Arthur swallows, looks round at the doomed woods, still teeming with primeval life, and tension tugs at his chest. “Can you bring it all back? All this, I mean?”

“It’s a tough one,” Merlin says, cocking his head to one side like a robin eyeing a particularly difficult worm. “But I think I can do it with your help.”

“Me?” _Yes,_ Arthur’s heart says, with every thump. _This is what I was born for._

“Yes!" Merlin echoes Arthur's thought. "The elder oak will preserve many of the creatures who live here. Many of the wild plants will come without help. But the bigger animals will need to be brought here.”

“I can hunt for them,” says Arthur, remembering, he’s not sure how, a time when no hunter in the five kingdoms could best him. “But I’ll need some time.”

“I can make time.” Merlin grins.

High above the canopy of leaves, a skylark trills. 

*END*

**Author's Note:**

> The title is from the poem _"Hope" is the thing with feathers_ , by Emily Dickinson
> 
> Disclaimer: Not my characters, I'm not getting paid.


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